Georgia: Kakheti, qvevri and the long table

Georgia taught me that the table comes first and the wine follows it. This is the week I run in Kakheti, eastern Georgia, where about seventy percent of the country’s grapes grow, most of them along the Alazani valley, with one day in Kartli north-west of Tbilisi for contrast. Six cellars: three family maranis that add little or nothing to the qvevri, three classic houses with steel, French oak and a palace. Two nights inside the walls of Sighnaghi, one at a wine estate in Kisiskhevi, three in Tbilisi. Six to ten guests, a long table most evenings, and a tamada at the last of them. Tbilisi to Tbilisi, seven days.

Day 1: Tbilisi#

Arrive when your flight allows; the airport is 20 to 30 minutes from the centre and a driver meets each of you. We stay in Sololaki, the old quarter of wooden balconies. At 18:00 we walk to Vino Underground, the cellar bar a group of winemakers opened here in 2012, where Georgia’s natural-wine growers still meet. I order four glasses so you have the vocabulary before we leave the city: an amber Rkatsiteli after six months on skins in qvevri, the Kakhetian method in its plainest form; a Chinuri from Kartli made without skins; a Saperavi from qvevri; a Saperavi from oak. Dinner is free tonight; I book tables within a five-minute walk.

Day 2: Kartli, Chardakhi and Mukhrani#

We leave at 09:00, stop in Mtskheta, the old capital, for Svetitskhoveli cathedral, and continue to Chardakhi at 604 metres, 40 minutes from Tbilisi. Iago Bitarishvili farms two hectares of Chinuri, vines more than sixty years old, and has held Georgia’s first organic certificate since 2005. Two wines from one grape: Chinuri without skins, green apple and white flowers, and Chinuri after about six months on skins in qvevri, amber, dried apricot, a light tannin. We taste at the qvevri, then at the table, where Marina Kurtanidze, who makes her own Mtsvane as Marina’s Wine, cooks khinkali and shkmeruli. At 15:00 we drive 15 minutes to Château Mukhrani: a palace designed in 1873 for Prince Ivane Mukhranbatoni, who made his first vintage here in 1878, and 102 hectares replanted since 2002. Patrick Honnef, winemaker since 2014, works in steel and French oak. Goruli Mtsvane, crisp and herbal; Shavkapito, sour cherry and pepper; the oak-aged Réserve Royale Saperavi. Back in Tbilisi by 19:00, dinner free.

Day 3: Sighnaghi and Tibaani#

Two hours east, 110 kilometres, to Sighnaghi, the town King Erekle II walled in 1762 at 836 metres, looking across the Alazani valley to the Caucasus. Bags to a family guesthouse inside the walls, then lunch at the Pheasant’s Tears restaurant: pkhali, aubergine rolls with walnut, chakapuli in spring or mtsvadi in autumn, and five or six wines from the estate John Wurdeman, an American painter settled here since 1996, founded with the grower Gela Patalishvili in 2007. After lunch we drive 15 minutes down to the cellar in Tibaani, the village whose PDO is amber Rkatsiteli from qvevri. Wild yeast, no fining, no filtering, skin contact from a day to six months by grape. We taste Kisi, six months on skins, apricot and honey with a firm grip, and Poliphonia, a field blend of well over a hundred varieties. If someone sings, and at harvest someone usually does, we stay. Dinner at the guesthouse.

Day 4: Sighnaghi, Okro’s Wines and the supra#

A slow morning: the walls of Sighnaghi and Bodbe convent, two kilometres away, before the coaches arrive. At 11:30 we walk up to Okro’s Wines, the marani John Okruashvili built on the hillside above town; his family kept backyard qvevri going through the Soviet decades; he has bottled since about 2009. Qvevri only, wild yeast, four to six months on skins with daily punching down, nothing added, nothing removed. His Rkatsiteli is amber with orange peel and walnut and a tannin that asks for food, so lunch follows on the terrace over the valley: tomato salad with sunflower oil, pork grilled over vine cuttings, wine drawn straight from the qvevri. The afternoon is yours. At 20:00 the guesthouse sets the long table of the title: a supra, led by a tamada, where nobody drinks before the toast and glasses touch on every one. I bring the wines; the family brings the rest.

Day 5: Tsinandali, Alaverdi and Kisiskhevi#

We drive 1 h 15 min north-west to Tsinandali, near Telavi, where Prince Alexander Chavchavadze bottled a Saperavi 1839 in 1841, the oldest documented Georgian wine and the start of European-method winemaking here. The house museum, 18 hectares of park and an oenotheque of more than 16,500 bottles, then a tasting of PDO Tsinandali white, Rkatsiteli with Mtsvane from steel, quince and hazelnut, beside the estate’s own qvevri Rkatsiteli. Lunch on the estate. Twenty-five minutes on to Alaverdi Monastery for the cathedral and its 11th-century marani, where monks still make qvevri wine. By 17:00 we are at Schuchmann Wines in Kisiskhevi, 620 metres, the estate Burkhard Schuchmann founded in 2008 with winemaker Gogi Dakishvili, born in Telavi. His Vinoterra line ferments in qvevri on skins and then rests in oak, so we pour Vinoterra Kisi beside a steel Rkatsiteli from the Schuchmann label. We sleep and eat at the estate.

Day 6: Kisiskhevi to Tbilisi over the Gombori pass#

In September the Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane are usually coming in, and we spend the morning in the rows and at the crusher; in May we walk the same vineyards in flower and stop at the Telavi bazaar for churchkhela and the first tkemali. At 11:00 we cross the Gombori pass to Tbilisi, about 100 kilometres and two hours, or the longer way round through Gurjaani if roadworks close the pass. Afternoon free: the sulfur baths of Abanotubani or the Dry Bridge market. At 19:30 the farewell supra in a restaurant in the old town, with a tamada and my last exercise: two Saperavis and two Rkatsitelis blind, one natural and one classic in each pair, and no wrong answers. More on both grapes in my Saperavi and Rkatsiteli note.

Day 7: Tbilisi#

Breakfast, then transfers to the airport, 20 to 30 minutes, timed to each flight. If yours leaves late, I walk with anyone who wants to the Georgian National Museum on Rustaveli Avenue, and on the way I tell the story of Gadachrili Gora, 50 kilometres south of the city, whose pottery carries the earliest chemical evidence of wine, around 6000 BC. Bottles travel well wrapped in a jumper in checked luggage, and the amber wines, with their tannin, travel best of all. Lunch is on your own.

Who this tour is for#

For anyone who has read about qvevri and wants to taste what six months on skins does to a white grape, with the classic houses of the same valley on the same table. For eaters: the supra is not optional and Kakhetian tables lean on meat, though pkhali, beans and cheese carry a vegetarian through the week. It suits first-time visitors and people who know Tbilisi but never got past a day trip. If you want western Georgia, the churi of Imereti and Khvanchkara, see the Imereti and Racha tour; if you want Armenia as well, the eleven-day route. Any of it can run as a private tour for two to twelve.

Practical notes#

Flights: Vienna to Tbilisi non-stop is about 3 h 45 min with Austrian Airlines or Georgian Airways; there is no non-stop from Prague. Wizz Air flies Prague and Vienna to Kutaisi, four hours by road from Tbilisi, too far for this route. EU citizens need no visa for stays up to a year. Weather: late May and June are warm in the valley, around 25 to 30 °C; late September sits at 23 to 28 °C by day, cooler at night on the walls of Sighnaghi, so bring a layer. Rtveli runs from the whites in early to mid September to the Saperavi in October. Pack shoes for cobbles and cellar steps; nothing is harder than a vineyard walk unless you volunteer for the rows. Cards work in towns, cash in villages; the currency is the lari. Sockets are type C and F; Georgia is UTC+4 all year. The FAQ covers single rooms and dietary needs; my note on visiting a winemaker explains why we never arrive late to a marani.